Lecture 12: Graph Theory

Like 7 bridge problem, graph theory is a study of how nodes in the network connect to each other in the most efficient way. Two primary factors in the graph are vertices and edges. In this modern age, we are interested in information networks, which is the network moving information from one node to another. There are some terminologies that we might need to know before we go further to the detail of networks. First, collaboration graph visualize how people cooperate with each other, linking every pair together if they cooperate with each other. Path is a sequence of path that link nodes. In the Internet, we choose the shortest path/minimum path, which goes through the least number of nodes.

Lecture 11: Long Tail Keywords

On 2006, Chris Anderson published a book called "The Long Tail". He stated that the society is moving from a high demand market portion toward a number of small "hits", accumulating a huge portion in niche market tail.

Source: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/about.html

Lecture 9&10: Pre-Campaign Report & Optimized Publishing in Social Spaces

Generally, pre-campaign report is used by judge to understand the campaign structure/strategy, company background…etc. With the current situation of company, we can measure the baseline case and compare with expected benefits to show the value of campaign. Avoiding abstract phrases, we should provide precise quantitative numbers to measure campaign and make sure you know what you really mean about objectives. For example, how many visitors will be attracted by campaign, or what’s the conversion rate. With concrete figure targets, we can examine performance on real time and adjust movement depending on different situations. While analyzing client industry and current situation, we can not only research industrial data but also incorporate traffic information of website to predict future trend.

Lecture 8: Design an Ad Campaign

Advertisement is part of marketing. The fundamental idea of marketing is to convey your message to customers and expect conversion. The same idea applies to either traditional ads or online ads. Initial analysis is non-trivial for a marketing campaign. We need to thoroughly understand client's business, industry, and products by marketing researching and constantly communicating with client. The most important is to know business objective clients want to achieve and the potential customers/audiences. Industry information is critical as well. Understanding the industrial trend and competitors help us to design the content of ads.

Lecture 7: Advertising

Traditional advertising, such as TV, radio, billboard, print ads, usually use impression as a unit to measure price and value. Impression is the frequency of advertising showing up. Traditional commercial media charge sponsors based on cost per thousand impression or mille (CPM). Super bowl is an extreme case that cost per impression is very high. All these traditional advertising focus on the frequency of ads appearance rather then the effectiveness of the commercial. Sponsors can spend a great deal of money but do not obtain expected return, since the budget spent on advertising is not positively related to income, placing a huge risk for a firm when spending millions dollars to advertise via traditional media.

Lecture 6: Network Analysis

Social media networks grow rapidly. Business, especially marketing folks, want to utilize Big Data to distribute customized message to potential customers. People want to connect to each other to strengthen their individual social networks, building relationship. To achieve those objectives, more and more demand of networks analysis increase. To do network analysis, first we should think about what kind of network we are going to construct and what are we going to define node in the network. Then, how do we connect those nodes? Social media connect people as nodes. This post will focus on two current popular social media in the United States: LinkedIn and Tweeter.

LinkedIn is a professional social media, allowing users to upload resume and connect to each other in related fields.

Lecture 5: Website Analysis Process

Ten years ago, websites are only for web presents. Now, we not only want people to visit our websites but want conversion, that is, people visit our website and do what we want. To improve the website, we should analyze the website and see what we can do. Before starting to analyze visit traffic, there are some critical steps we need to proceed.

First of all, thoroughly understand the website in both content and structure. Knowing the content helps us to familiarize with organization's business and core competences, and what message it wants to convey. From the structure of website, we can see how an organization navigate visitors within website and generate improvements that make website more friendly and goal oriented.